Happy Birthday To Kara!

Yesterday was Kara's birthday.  I'm not sure how it happened, but this year Kara says that she turned 29.95.  That's getting dangerously close to 30, but I won't tell her that.  

Fortunately for us, this year her birthday fell on a saturday, and the weather was absolutely gorgeous.  That could only mean one thing: the beach.  We packed up our minivan and headed on down to Kittyhawk to spend some quality time on the water, and just do nothing at all.

Not surprisingly, we were only there for a few minutes before the familiar, "Kara? Is that you?" happened.  You see, everywhere we go around here, it seems like Kara will always bump into someone she went to school with or is friends with.  Usually the conversation goes just like this: "Kara, is that you?  I thought so.  I saw your hair and I just thought to myself, 'That's Kara.'"  It's always the hair that gives her away.  So here we were on her birthday, enjoying some time at a random place on the beach in Kittyhawk, when we bump into friends of hers from high school.  What are the chances?  Now, what I'm waiting for is to one day bump into somebody that I know.  That will be a real shocker.

The beach was absolutely terrific.  Kasia had a great time playing in the sand, and then after building up some courage, she ran into the water as well.  The water of course is near freezing because it's still early in the season, but that doesn't seem to deter our little wonder.  The biggest problem with it is that if she's going to go playing in the water, one of us needs to be out there with her.  Did I mention that the water was really cold?  So anyway, I spent most of my day out splashing in the water as well.  I have to admit though that after you're out in it for awhile, your feet usually get too numb to really care about the cold.  That's looking at it from the bright side.

Today also marks the one year anniversary of our purchase of the house.  It's hard to believe that we've been homeowners for an entire year.  We've made a few changes here and there to make things a little more "us."  Now all we have to do is fall into a ton of money so that we can make all the other changes that we want.  Does anyone know of a rich old person who is wondering what he can do with his millions?  Because we'll take it.  I'm just saying, if nobody else wants it, we're here.

Our House Guests Multiplied

Well, it didn't take long for our feathered friend to make a family in our hanging flowers.  I went out there the other day just to check on the progress, and there were two other little ones now sharing the nest with mom.  Though, to call them "little" is a bit of a stretch.  They're nearly grown enough that they need to be kicked out of the nest and told to go make it on their own.  But, like some stubborn college graduate, they want to keep living at home on their parent's money.

I decided to help out the process.  While doing some gardening work (and that's a stretch as well) I accidentally bumped my head into the flower pot, thus startling the entire family.  The next thing I know, everyone has fled the nest, and the kids were trying to figure out how to fly.  That must have done the trick, because it's been a couple of days now, and they haven't returned.  I guess we can finally water our flowers again.

We Have a House Guest

Ever since we moved into the house, Kara has wanted to have some hanging flowers on our front porch.  After waiting out the winter, Spring finally arrived and up went the hanging flowers.  We didn't even have them up for a week before this lovely little bird had made a nest in the flowers and had laid her eggs.  

So now we have a hanging bird's nest on our front porch.   

Tibet is Free

They are known to their friends as "The Three Stooges," but today, Larry Elders, John Brown, and Steve Lipinksi are known as heroes in Tibet.  These three climbed the Golden Gate Bridge on tuesday to hang their sign calling for Tibet to be set free.  The Chinese government was clearly listening as they released Tibet into the wild early on Wednesday morning.  

China President Hu Jintao, with a tear streaking down his cheek as he watched the newly freed Tibet frolic through the fields, said, "We had no idea that Tibet really wanted to be free.  But then, I saw that people were climbing the Golden Gate Bridge and hanging signs.  Well, that was all the convincing I needed."

After worldwide protests which included the extiguishing of the Olympic flame in Paris, Chinese leaders succumbed to the mass protests.  Insiders claim that the inner cabinet members were planning on remaining firm on their stance toward Tibet, but once they saw what was going on in San Francisco, they uniformly changed their minds.

"I mean, they climbed the Golden Gate Bridge!" exclaimed President Hu through an interpreter Wednesday morning.  "The freakin' Golden Gate Bridge!  What's next, the Eiffel Tower?  We just can't risk that."  

Word has it that they were also so moved by German Chancellor Angela Merkel boycotting the Olympic opening ceremonies, that they've decided to unilaterally end the killing in Darfur.  As a sign of reconciliation, they've also decided to build a new home for every refugee in Sudan while also providing universal health care to everyone in Africa.  

And here, I was thinking that protesting the Olympic torch run wasn't going to do anything.  Boy, was I wrong.

Housing Crisis

I'm not really sure what the whole deal is with all this talk about the "housing crisis."  I usually just breeze past those articles in search of something more interesting.  But now I'm finally getting caught up on what's going on.

So, here's the skinny of it all.  Apparently something like 98% of all houses are now in foreclosure.  If your house isn't currently in foreclosure, it soon will be.  And it's also possible that your house is now in foreclosure, but you just haven't received the letter from your bank yet.

Also, apparently in the last five years or so, everyone who got a mortgage, got a sub-prime mortgage.  Everyone that is, except us.  We were suckers who couldn't talk the bank into giving us a mortgage below the prime lending rate.  Turns out we weren't the suckers at all, because sub-prime is actually Latin for "bait and switch."  So while all of you people with your fancy little sub-prime mortgages (which, according to the news, is most of you) are about to have your homes go into foreclosure, we're going to be sitting pretty on our front porch, sipping our lemonade.  

But fear not, because the government is now going to come in and pay your mortgage for you.  Isn't that awesome!?  And the best part is, that it won't cost you anything.  They're just going to make the rich pay more taxes.  I love the way our system works.

Kasia Update

Kasia had her two year check up at the end of March, and I completely forgot to mention it.  As it turns out, she's healthy.  Go figure.  She eats nothing but cookies and Cheetos, and she's perfectly healthy.  She stands a proud 32.5" tall and weighs in at 23 lb 11 oz.  For those of you who don't have the height/growth chart handy, that means she's tall and skinny.  She's way up there in height, and in a low percentile for her weight.  What that means for us is that we can't get any pants that fit her.  

The doctor also said that she has "very strong stomach muscles."  I'm not sure what that means, though he was trying to wrestle her down at the time.  

My Sports Curse

It's a known fact that whatever team I cheer for will inevitably lose.  It's been so well tested, that during the NFL playoffs, I actually publicly cheered for the team I wanted to lose... and sure enough, they lost.  

Is it just a coincidence that Davidson College lost as soon as I put up a post about how they were the Cinderella story of the NCAA Tournament, and I was hoping they'd go all the way.  Then they lost.  So I wrote a post about how I was cheering for UNC.  And they lost their next game.  I also made mention that the only good professional team we had was our hockey team.  And they lost their next few games.  

Finally, in an off-hand comment, I said that the UNC women's team was still going strong.  But that was their downfall, and they lost their next game.  The curse continues.

Now you know why the Cubs can never have a winning season.  So, GO YANKEES!